


smells like teen spirit

by askmeaboutmyoctopustheory



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Beefy Bucky Barnes, Cheerleaders, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, College Football, M/M, Multi, Tall Clint Barton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:21:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22277005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/askmeaboutmyoctopustheory/pseuds/askmeaboutmyoctopustheory
Summary: The good-natured heckling continued through the team cooldown and then Clint slipped away to meet Bucky. He was standing near the beach on the boardwalk, looking awkwardly out of place amongst the cheerleaders walking to and fro. Clint walked up behind him and draped himself over Bucky’s shorter frame.“Hey handsome.”Bucky twisted around to face Clint and kissed him with a grin. “Hey babe. Look at you, sneaking away from practice to make out under the bleachers.”or:i just watched all of that cheer docuseries on netflix
Relationships: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Comments: 8
Kudos: 51





	smells like teen spirit

Clint tapped his pen impatiently as his professor droned on and on in class. He had zoned out quite a bit ago and started going over his latest routine in his head. Tumble. Stunt. Dance. Tumble out. Pyramid. 

It was almost competition time and Clint and his fellow Shield College cheerleaders were in crunch time. They had a national title to defend and a crazily complex routine in order to do it. Coach Hill was pushing them farther and harder each practice. 

When class was excused, Clint hurried out of the classroom and jogged as a warm up on his way to the gym. A few of his teammates were already there getting prepared for yet another grueling practice, including his stunting partner.

“Hey loser, wanna warm up our tick-tocks?” Natasha smacked him lightly on the arm. 

“Yeah Nat, give me a sec.” Clint grinned as he wrapped his wrists and the other guys on the team laughed at him.

“Man she has you whipped and you aren’t even dating.” One of them, T’challa, said.   
  
Clint just laughed them off and looked over at his partner warming up with another flyer. She flipped him off.

“Yeah, we know you got a boy at State; we’re just fucking with you.” Scott, one of the newer recruits clarifies hastily.

The others agreed and Clint felt his mouth twitch into a smile as it usually did when they teased him about Bucky. Bucky, who had gotten a football scholarship to a D1 school after they both graduated. They had been doing fine with long distance with Clint at a junior college just an hour away, but he couldn’t deny the appeal of transferring to State once he was done at Shield College. He winked roguishly at the other guys and wandered over to where Natasha was waiting with her hands on her hips.

“Mr. Barton? Could I watch your grip technique?” One of the youngest members of the alternate team asked as Clint approached Natasha.

“Yeah but christ, call me Clint I feel old as shit.” Clint mostly just grinned ridiculously at Nat. “And be an extra spot on the rare occasion that we miss a stunt.”

Clint and Natasha had gone to rival high schools, but had been stunt partners on their all-star cheer team. They were generally considered one of the best pairings on the team, debatably in the state. And in a bit, they could compete for a national title when the team competed with their routine in Daytona.

As predicted, their warmup went flawlessly and then Coach Hill worked them tirelessly through several runs of their routine, then made the pyramid stunters run the pyramid several more times. On the last full-out run, Clint could feel himself getting fatigued.

“Barton! Tighten up your full twist, backyard tumbler!” Hill yelled at him.

He managed through the last stunts and felt Natasha wobbling a bit too as he held her feet securely. As soon as she was safely on the ground, he all but collapsed, flopping over and let his arms hang down loosely. 

“Biceps aren’t just for show, eh?” Nat heaved out as she lay exhausted on the mat, red hair sticking to her sweating face. Clint made a move like he was going to shove at her but she didn’t flinch, knowing they were too exhausted to bicker. “You going to see your boy this weekend?”   
  
“Yeah.” Clint finally had his heart rate down to normal. “You want me to say hi to Steve for you?”

Natasha scowled at him but blushed a bit nonetheless. They complete their cool down stretches and listen to Coach’s traditional post-practice, month-from-competition pep talk. When they were finally released, Clint dragged himself back to his shitty apartment and reheated some pizza. His pizza that had a post-it note from Nat on the box reading “you won’t be 22 forever :) eat a vegetable.” He threw the note in the trash with a grin and grudgingly threw some green leafy shit into his blender with protein powder. Midway through his Biology homework, his phone lit up with an incoming FaceTime call from Bucky. 

“Baabe! Hi!” 

“Hi love, how was practice?” Bucky himself had his eyeblack running down his cheeks and his long hair was sweaty.

“Long, tiring. The usual. How about you?”    
  


“Good.” Bucky grinned breathlessly and just smiled at the phone camera for a moment. “You’re comin’ this weekend, right?”

“Of course I am! Probably be the last time I’ll make it down there before Nationals next month.”   
  
“Yeah but Stevie and I are coming to Florida to watch, so you’ll see me then.” Bucky grinned again and tilted his phone to bring his best friend into the frame as well.

“Hi Clint!” the other blonde waved.

“Hey Steve.” 

“Anyway. Just wanted to see your dumb face.” Bucky smiled at Clint through the camera again. “Gotta hang up soon we’re almost at the locker room”

“I haven’t snuck into the football locker rooms since high school.” Clint laughed. “Bye baby. I love you.”   
  
“Love you too.”

\----

Predictably, the next month of Clint’s life was taken up with stressing in preparation for Nationals. Extra team practices until late at night, extra lifting sessions with the guys in the morning, practicing through fall break, sometimes practicing tumbling on the grass between classes. Coach Hill was seen tapping her clipboard in anxiety anytime a run-through went less than perfectly and making them run the routine over and over again. The night before they left for Nationals the team all slept over on the mats of their practice gym, partially for team bonding and partially to make sure nobody forgot to wake up for the plane ride to Florida.

Natasha kicked Clint awake in the morning and handed him a cup of coffee and his high-tech hearing aids that he wore while cheering. She was looking at him amusedly as she sipped her own latte from the shop down the road. He drank half of the XL black coffee with his finger up in a “wait” motion until he held out his hands for his aids. 

“Rise and shine princess.” She said cheerily. “I put your bag on the bus already, you’re welcome.”

“I love you so much.” Clint said sleepily as the caffeine made its way into his system.

“Gross.” Nat replied as she hauled him up by the hand he stuck out. Say what you will about flyers, but they were as strong as the bases. “Seat buddies?”   
  
“Duh.” Clint rolled his eyes at her. They had been seat buddies for as many competitions as they had been stunting together.

He pulled up their pre-competition playlist and handed Nat the other set of headphones from their splitter once they were on the bus and they fell into their easy headspace of travel. When they landed, they were in competition mode.

“Buck’s here.” Clint said softly, showing Natasha the text that Bucky had sent him earlier while they were still in the air.

Bucky and Steve had decided to make a road trip out of coming down to see the competition, so they had left a day earlier. Clint grinned as he texted Bucky to meet him later.

The first day of being in Daytona Beach, they ran through a stunt circle. All the stunt pairings warmed up their favorite or best stunts, or did their counts from the competition routine while the rest of the team cheered and shouted in a circle around the stunters. Natasha and Clint, as the pairing that was widely accepted as the best, went last. In addition to the team competition, they were competing in the partner stunting competition on their own. 

“How’s the weather up there Nat?” one of the other girls, Sharon, called to her as Clint was holding her in a full extension.

Natasha just laughed and launched herself off, flipping and landing in a cradle position a moment later. Clint hadn’t ever let her hit the ground, not really. They had stunts fall but Nat always knew he’d fight to keep her from hitting the mat. They were still laughing and Clint whispered something in her ear before spinning her around up into the air again. 

“Alright alright quit showin’ off, future national champs.” 

“Don’t jinx us, Lang.” Clint shot back with a grin. 

The good-natured heckling continued through the team cooldown and then Clint slipped away to meet Bucky. He was standing near the beach on the boardwalk, looking awkwardly out of place amongst the cheerleaders walking to and fro. Clint walked up behind him and draped himself over Bucky’s shorter frame.

“Hey handsome.” 

Bucky twisted around to face Clint and kissed him with a grin. “Hey babe. Look at you, sneaking away from practice to make out under the bleachers.”   
  
Clint barked out a laugh. “Our high school bleachers weren’t on a beach, Buck.”

“Shush, let me have this.”   
  
“Alright then, where’s your letter jacket? I’m cold.”   
  
“We’re in Florida.” Bucky laughed. “And I never had a letterman’s jacket.”   
  
“Fiiiiine.” Clint rolled his eyes dramatically but laughed anyway. “I can’t stay away long, Coach’ll kill me if I dip out on team stuff two nights before competition.”   
  
“Aren’t you and Nat competing tomorrow?” Bucky frowned slightly in confusion.

“Yeah but that’s….” Clint waved his hand vaguely. “Neither of us are too worried.”

Bucky considered that and then just kissed Clint again. “Well. I’ll be there regardless, and the next day. And then you’re finally all mine for a few days!”   
  


Sure enough, when Clint walked out on the mat with Natasha the next day, he scanned the crowd briefly and saw his boyfriend’s long hair and Steve’s large frame tucked next to the cheer moms and supporters. He felt a fuzzy feeling in his gut as their music started and Natasha started her back handspring into his hands.

A minute and a half later, they were collapsing off of the stage in an adrenaline-fueled tangle of limbs as their teammates piled around them and yelled their praise. Clint made his way through the back slaps and hair ruffles to where Bucky was standing with his hands in his jeans pockets.

“What the hell are you wearing?”   
  
Bucky had on a shirt with that read CHEER BOYFRIEND in rhinestoned lettering. “Just thought I’d contribute to the spirit.”   
  
“It looks like it was vacu-sealed onto you.” Clint let his eyes rake over the shirt that clung to almost every ridge of Bucky’s torso. “If you flex hard enough you’ll rip out of it.”

“Want me to test that?” Bucky picked his arm up like he was going to flex but Clint grabbed him and pulled him in for a kiss instead.

“No. Later.”

When Bucky went to collect Steve from where he was talking to Natasha, Clint noticed that the redhead’s face was still a bit pink but he didn’t think it was from exertion. When he gave her a pointed eyebrow raise, she just scowled at him as she put on her jacket and they jogged along the boardwalk a bit to cool down. They were meeting the team at a beachside restaurant for the last team dinner before competition day. Despite just doing their partner routine, both Clint and Natasha felt the nerves start to bubble up as the team ate together and made their way back to their hotel rooms. 

Their hard work was paying off; their stunts were hitting, their tumbling clean. When they hit the final pyramid, the energy coming from the crowd was incredible and after dismounting safely, the team broke into elated sobs. Coach Hill was clapping and smiling like she was stunned that it was all finally over.

When Clint saw Bucky he jogged over and launched himself into the shorter man’s arms, making him catch him in a bridal carry. “We did it! We hit it all perfectly and-”   
  
Bucky cut him off with a kiss and spun them both around. “I saw! You were perfect.” 

**Author's Note:**

> so i was a high school cheerleader but i don't know if all of this is *strictly* accurate but idc it's fanfic
> 
> here's some inspo for Nat and Clint's [routine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TasRbawh5W4)
> 
> i know i ended this poorly but i wanted to be free of this goddamn au that i somehow wrote 2k words of
> 
> find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/_AMAMOT) or i’m back on [tumblr](https://askmeaboutmyoctopustheory.tumblr.com/)


End file.
